Cyberattack may have cost Russia’s Aeroflot millions of dollars in a single day, experts say
Russia’s largest airline, Aeroflot, may have lost at least 250 million rubles ($3 million) on Monday after being forced to cancel flights to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport following a cyberattack on its IT systems, according to aviation industry sources who spoke to the outlet RBC.
The sources estimate that each canceled flight cost the airline an average of 2.4 million rubles ($29,500), based on a one-way ticket price of 20,000 rubles ($245) and an average aircraft capacity of 120 seats. “Using conservative estimates, Aeroflot lost 259.2 million rubles ($3.18 million) in one day,” one source told RBC.
Another industry insider said the total damage could reach several billion rubles when factoring in costs related to restoring the IT infrastructure, lost revenue from unsold tickets, and the broader impact of the canceled flights.
Alexander Lanetsky, CEO of the consulting firm Friendly Avia Support, told RBC that a full assessment of the damage will require more clarity on what exactly happened, what kind of data was lost, and over what time period. In his estimate, Aeroflot may have lost close to half a billion rubles ($6.1 million) on July 28 alone.
Meanwhile, the company’s low-cost subsidiary Pobeda continues to operate normally, RBC reported. “Aeroflot and Pobeda use different IT infrastructures, and the low-cost carrier’s system is less complex. It runs on fewer software programs that could be affected,” one source explained.
